Heat breaker Gazpacho

Here we are in the early days of Spring and my thoughts wander to daydreams of the impending flesh-frying heat of summer in Barcelona, where I live. A city by the sea, the summer air sweats like a sauna and fuses to the arcing white-hot radiance from that burning fireball in the sky. You move. You sweat. Stand still too long and the sidewalk grills the soles of your feet. Keep your shirt on, you’ll bake to a crispy corpse. Take it off and the meat is cooked on the bone. Just add sun tan oil and a few herbs and serve yourself up as medium well done. Most of tourists from the North are wearing that pinky red scorched skin look and it looks like a whole lot of hurt.
It gets hot here. I’m telling ya.

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So what is the cure? How to stay protected from the blistering rays and not toast your beautiful body to ash? Easy. The secret is right here and its all tasty and scientifically proven.

You’ll love it. The best fresh and fruity, red and juicy gazpacho of all time.
Mix it up, drink it up. Take it to the beach or the rehearsal studio. This one will protect you in all kinds of ways you never thought possible.

All you need is:

A tall glass of your favourite tomato juice

Big wedge of watermelon

Cucumber

A handful of ice cubes

Fresh mint leaves

If the watermelon has seeds then take them out first.
Chop the mint. If serving for friends, you can dress the drink with a single leaf.
Just put everything into the blender and whiz it up for a minute and serve immediately or put in a vacuum flask for later.

I invented this combo myself a while ago because I love traditional tomato gazpacho but I wanted the crushed fruity punch of watermelon juice as well and of course fresh mint just takes it to another dimension.

So then…

I first tried this combination after an especially heavy rehearsal with the band in a metal lined oven in the derelict factory district on the fringe of the Zona Franca. The practice room was in a crumbling old, dusty warehouse with a car body spray shop on one side that filtered fumes of toxic paint up our noses while we worked hard, breathing heavy and sweated raindrops like bullets rolling off our glowing backs. Mid-summer dust, fumes, flame heat sunshine torching the room, I staggered out of there coughing, delirious and damn near ready to expire and then I remembered my thermos flask, ha! Vacuum flasks, so good at keeping hot drinks hot also great for keeping cold drinks cold.

I gave a it a quick shake to remix and then opened it up and took a deep draft straight down the gullet,,,,phoooowwwweerrrrrrr! Bingo! That ice cold super juicy, minty, freshly fruity, cooling ice to the belly was like dropping a ton of crushed iceberg on a flaming furnace – the fire is smothered, the flames are gone. Only cool refreshing relief returns. Arms of molten lead are reborn to springy strength. The heat fuddled mind from blurry vision to a sharp crisp picture. I could feel cool energy coursing through my veins as fruity vitamins burst into my blood cells.

3 hours hard heat beating on the drums will take it out of you. This fruit gazpacho puts it all back again – and then some.